I discovered the future of democracy hiding in a strange crevice in my brain today. The answer, instead of a ‘leadership debate’, is ‘election big brother’. This gives some idea of what it might be like:

ELECTION BIG BROTHER

[Roll Big Brother theme music]

[Camera zooms in from high and far away in the distance, onto Davina Mccall, walking quickly towards camera with intent expression on her face, microphone in hand]

DAVINA: You’ve seen Big Brother, you’ve seen Celebrity Big Brother, you’ve seen Big Brother’s Little Brother, but this is something completely different: Election Big Brother.

Instead of a debate where these snivelling excuses for human beings that we call politicians can hide behind their well-rehearsed mendaciousness, we’ve given you the opportunity to see what they’re really like for a whole week — warts and all. Ha!

[voice drops to excited whisper]

Inside the house right now, Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg, David Cameron and some other assorted busybodies representing no-hoper political factions from the xenophobic far-right fascists to the frankly bonkers socialists with the puritan greens somewhere in the middle of the two are busy struggling with life without their wives, make-up artists, PR men, spin doctors and advisors. Phew — what a mouthful!

At the end of the week you get to vote who you want into Downing Street. Beats having an election, after all. Calls cost a pound a minute and will go towards paying off the national debt. Let’s see how they’ve been getting on over the last 24 hours, shall we?

GEORDIE VOICEOVER GUY (GVG) [SOUNDING PARTICULARLY ABJECT]: seven fifteen pee emm. The contestants are gathered in the kitchen. What a bleeding shower.

DAVID CAMERON: I do hope that your socks don’t smell, Gordon. Osbourne told me that he stood too close to you once and thought you’d hidden an over-ripe camembert in your shoes. Ha ha.

GORDON BROWN: You don’t amuse me Cameron and you won’t be smirking by the time you leave this house, believe me.

UNNAMED BUT RECOGNISABLE FASCIST: At least we’re all white!

CAROLINE LUCAS (GREEN PARTY): And all men. I wish I wasn’t the only woman. Please put the toilet seat up when you go the loo — and you don’t need to flush it every time you do a number one, either. We need to save water. And turn the light off when you’re finished.

MAN FROM LITTLE ENGLAND PARTY: If you had it your way you’d make that EU legislation and I’d get fined by some puffed-up, over-paid, pompous Brussels bureaucrat for not turning out the light in MY OWN BATHROOM.

GVG: seven forty five pee emm. David Cameron is in the diary room.

DC: Quite frankly, big brother, I find Gordon wholly impossible to live with. The man’s a terrible bully. He’s already taken on a most threatening air that I don’t care for at all. He’s a brute.

BIG BROTHER: What would you like to do about it, David?

DC: Well, I simply think it’s my duty to inform the electorate what this man is like.

BB: Even if you do come across as a pathetic little schoolboy?

DC: Errmm . . .

GVG: eight thirty pee emm. Nick Clegg is playing table tennis with the fascist.

NICK CLEGG: I’m only playing you so that I can beat you. I disagree with everything you stand for and I don’t think you should have been allowed on this show.

FASCIST: Well what kind of liberal are you, man? The kind of liberal that likes to suppress freedom of expression? Don’t you think that makes you a bit of a hypocrite?

[NC SMASHES BALL PAST FASCIST]

NC: Maybe, but at least I’m going to thrash you at ping-pong, you snivelling xenophobe.

GEORGE GALLOWAY: etc. etc.

That’s right. Sign up to my twaddle, or my twatter feed, and I’ll witter at you inanely in trills and warbles of 140 characters or less. lol.
No, but seriously. Most communication is full of noise. The beauty of twaddle  is that you have to really think about what you want to say before you say it. It’s pithy. It’s like writing a haiku.
Yeah, I know that people titter that twaddle is just twits wittering and twats waddling. Or something like that, lol.
But now you’ll know what I’m up to at any time of day, whether I’m coming up with a brilliant idea for a new book or trekking through the Himalayas!
God, this blog entry is so long. I really don’t know what else to say. Makes me think: keep it simple stupid!
Don’t forget to read my warbles, now!
Kevin.

1. They are unbelievably and horribly smug.
2. They seem to think that they’re powerful, I assume because their whole act is that they’re predicting nature. They see themselves as some kind of link between nature and humanity as a whole – like a messenger from God. Assume this is one of the main reasons for (1).
3. They think they’re celebrities. Assume this is a second reason for (1) and (2).
4. (2) and even (1) might be OK if they got their weather predictions right all the time, but they don’t. Hence particularly my dislike of (1).  See (5).
5. They get things wrong all the time, and don’t own up to it. If I was wrong in my work as often as that I would be homeless by now.
6. There’s the assumption that we all like warm, sunny weather. Even when south east England was having one of its worst droughts of recent times, the weathermen were still saying things like ‘I’m happy to report that it’s going to be another lovely sunny day’. At best, perverse, at worse, pandering to Daily Heil readers who would probably like their whole lives to be just one long sunny day, with them sitting inside with the curtains drawn, watching  a 24 hour weather forecast on BBC1, drinking tea and reading the daily bloody mail.
7. If you ever had the misfortune to spend much time hanging out with a weatherman or woman, what do you think the conversation would mainly be about? Boring, huh?
8. They say inane things like ‘the weather’s looking very busy for tomorrow’. Stop it. Weather is not ‘busy’. And they also try to be chirpy and sparky, probably trying to disguise the fact that they feel socially worthless and unfulfilled as human beings.
9. Occasionally, when what they might call ‘a major weather event’ is about to occur they cannot disguise their glee, simply because, for a day or so, the mundanity of reporting on ‘occasional showers’ or ‘sunny spells’ is relieved by forecasting a hurricane or heavy snow. ‘At last!’ is written all over their pinched and shallow countenances.
10. Weathermen and women are statistically more likely to commit antisocial crimes, take hard drugs while stealing sweets from children, not tip waiters and push in front of old people in queues (if they can get away with wildly inaccurate predictions every day of their lives, I think I can at least indulge in one).

I could keep going forever, there really is no limit to my contempt for weatherpeople, but it’s traditional to stop at ten.

Join me in boycotting weatherpeople and switch to a web-based weather forecasting site such as met check. It’s still obviously run by annoyingly smug meteorologists, but it’s easy to skip over the often irritatingly and ingratiatingly perky copy on the homepage onto lovely pages of predicted statistics, without a human face in sight. Ah, the human-less future.